Utopia Blog - August 19th

[Safri]

thanks for the update, and answering my question

sir nasty:
"Styling is a touchy subject with a lot of people, and for many style-related decisions we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. As it turns out, what you see in those screenshots aren’t frame borders - they’re just borders added in to divide the content, and styled to give the pages a bit of a ‘classic’ look. There are no frames in the new site."

thats from 15th july blog


edit: i didnt get my invite either even though i sent an email :(

[Sir Nasty]

hmm, I don't like the no frames thing. I hate the menu moving when I move the page.

I would at least want the menu on the left in a frame.

[VT2]

Frames are dated, but still work.
You know, like the old login-system.

[Sir Nasty]

I'll be honest about this.. in my opinion, it makes it look like a cheap knock off of the game when you play a version where the menu moves.
I would wager if you added frames back to it you would get a much better looking product
and one people are used to using.
I can see the no frames part bugging a lot of people.

[Hurlin]

It's more a matter of this being a very established, mature community.

muhahahahaha you are talking about utopia ?!?!?!

Nearly sprayed coffee on that one ...........


B&S

Not sure if you have mentioned this already or its in the works or something else ..... but have you run alpha/beta test's on the new utopia from a mobile phone ?

Does it all work ...... alot of people are now much more mobile then when the original utopia was created.

[Bishop]

To Sean and Brian..

will you be using frames with the new version?

I remember mention of possibly using other 'styles' or 'skins' for the game. When would that be introduced?

And a suggestion, I recently acquired the Utopia Metatron Plus addon for firefox. Some nice features that enhance the game and convience. Especially the links to kingdoms and
the auto fill in on the mystics and thievery page. Maybe some of these can be added since you are programming from scratch. I realize aesthetics are low priority at this point but it does make things a lot easier.

before you get carried away with frames, or lack thereof:

There are no frames, but the left menu does not move on resize
Some locations are clickable, i/e in the papers
Thief page retains info, we have asked for mystics to do the same. The thief page is quite good actually. It remembers prov and op to do, it also defaults to sending max thieves, or whatever number you entered - this means it is real easy to do multiple ops in a row.

[VT2]

I already explained what I meant when I said that it was a very mature community. Read the rest of my post instead of making yourself look more stupid than you really are.

[Sir Nasty]

before you get carried away with frames, or lack thereof:

There are no frames, but the left menu does not move on resize

I'm an alpha tester as well. When I scroll down the page my menu on the
left goes up and partially out of sight. So if I wanted to check something on a
page but decided to go to a different page I have to scroll back up to click
on the page I would want to visit next. Besides being annoying, again, this gives it a 'cheaper imitation' appearance.

Some locations are clickable, i/e in the papers
Thief page retains info, we have asked for mystics to do the same. The thief page is quite good actually. It remembers prov and op to do, it also defaults to sending max thieves, or whatever number you entered - this means it is real easy to do multiple ops in a row.

This I like very much! And of course would help on the mystics page. This was one of the most annoying things about Mehul's version. Constantly having to hit the back button and sometimes the ads have to reload and things get erased. Makes it easier to pimp the ops in also.
Locations in the paper and world charts are the main thing I would like that are linked to kingdoms. I see they are in World Charts, haven't had any news to click on yet so didn't know about that.

Edit: Just saw someone attack in the paper, clickable links on locations. I LOVE IT :)

[Safri]

edit: i didnt get my invite either even though i sent an email :(

actually just realised i could set up an account there when i tried, but i never got an email saying i could

[Sir Nasty]

Maybe it just got filtered by accident?

In any case, welcome to the alpha :) While I am sure it gets old fixing bugs I have no doubt they want everyone there doing what they can to point them out. The more the merrier.

[Safri]

When I scroll down the page my menu on the
left goes up and partially out of sight. So if I wanted to check something on a
page but decided to go to a different page I have to scroll back up to click
on the page I would want to visit next. Besides being annoying, again, this gives it a 'cheaper imitation' appearance.

I agree with this, its a bit annoying to have to scroll back up to find the menu

[Mourhelm]

I doubt they will keep the game looking like that...
AFAIK, at the moment functionality is what they are focusing on. Once everything works as it should I'd expect them to change game's layout.

[Sir Nasty]

I figured they are more worried about the functionality but when Safri posted that quote it got me a bit worried. Not sure if I am to take that as the new game WON'T have frames or that it only meant the alpha version DOESN'T have frames.

I figure they want honest feedback so I thought I would post and see what their response was :)

[Yadda9To5]

One more thing that needs urgent fixing is the performance of the new code. Waiting 5+ secs for the kingdom page to load is totally and completely unacceptable. If they go live with loadtimes like this all but the hardcore players will quit.

[Chris121]

actually just realised i could set up an account there when i tried, but i never got an email saying i could

hmm. I have requested a testing account (twice now - once before they said they have now invited everyone, and once after) and haven't had an email.

I assume that if I can login to the alpha it'll be from the game portal and a new box will show or something? In which case i still can't test :(